Without You I'm Not Me
by Cheryl W
Summary: That people would rather deal with him a little buzzed than not, what kind of person does that make him?  No slash


Without You I'm Not Me

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean or Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: This just came to me after watching the season premiere. Just one scene, one line kicked in my muse. And I totally stole the title from a Colin Raye song.

Summary: That people would rather deal with him a little buzzed than not, what kind of person does that make him?

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That people would rather deal with him a little buzzed than not, what kind of person does that make him? Does Slightly Drunk Dean keep his crap together better? Is he more likely to keep on swinging? Less likely to crawl into a corner and pray the world just stops? Is he the only thing keeping him from splitting apart worse than Sam is, Sam who had 100 years way worse than his forty?

Everyone's played his bartender one time or another.

Bobby's practically been his personal bartender over the years, this last month the man doesn't even dare approach him without bearing an alcoholic ice breaker.

He's even had a friggin' angel of the Lord pouring him a round.

Sober Dean must be one heck of a train wreck.

Course he wouldn't know, hasn't met the guy in a long, _long_ while. Before his stint in Hell. So what? Forty four years, give or take?

Lisa didn't even mind Alcoholic Dean. She didn't even bother broaching the subject of his drinking, not until she was saying 'goodbye and don't come back'. Called it what it was, a crutch, sometimes, most times the only way he could get through the days…and the nights.

For all the drinking his father had done, he knew he had his Dad beat, hands down. It wasn't a record he ever wanted to trump. But he hadn't even put a dent in his father's 'not breaking in hell' record. Guess he needs to take his wins wherever he can get them.

So Sam's light chastisement for his early morning ritual? It came out of left field for him.

"Want some coffee with that?" Like he should be reaching for the coffee carafe instead of his whiskey bottle?

When was the last time someone wanted him to _stop_ drinking? A Bush was in office, he thinks.

No one likes Sober Dean. Sober Dean is not the life of the party. Sober Dean can't think of a joke, let alone tell one. Sober Dean can't sleep worth crap. Sober Dean is a moody customer, always on the precipice of throwing a punch or bawling like a baby. Sober Dean takes the odds at face value and grabs his gun, not to give his last to the fight but all ready to eat a bullet. Sober Dean is not a survivor. Sober Dean is nobody's friend. Sober Dean is not welcome anywhere, not even in his own head.

Wanting Sober Dean to make a showing? Sam clearly is more off his rocker than he's admitting. Hell has truly screwed up his noggin'. But he'll get Sam right, well Buzzed Dean will. He's the inspirational speaker, after all. The team cheerleader. The one with the we'll-make-this-alright-because-we-have-to mentality.

Who wouldn't love Alcoholic Dean?

Apparently Sam. Sam who's made another ludicrous suggestion.

"Hey why don't you slow down on that stuff, Dean," he says, using his gentle, imploring little brother tone he knows gets to me every single time.

So, yeah. He doesn't refill his glass. But he finishes it.

Sam's next objection to Drunk Dean, it comes hoarsely from his brother's scream ravaged throat, "Dean, don't," And though Sam is laid out on a lumpy mattress, arm thrown over his eyes, been through a day, literally in Hell because the hallucinations decided to run rampage, his brother's searching hand unerringly finds his, covers his hand, the one that encircles the whiskey bottle's smooth beckoning surface.

He looks to Sam, wanting to ask Sam if he's friggin' serious, that after the day they've had a drink isn't in order…but he can't meet Sam's eyes. Because Sam is in too much pain to move, can't bear the small light even the piece of crap motel lamp is throwing off.

He suddenly feels nine ways the fool. If anyone deserves a drink, it's Sam.

"Do you want…" But Sam's shaking his head before the question is out. He knows that talking is too much of an effort for his exhausted brother but the next second Sam does it anyway.

"And I don't want you to either."

Sam's proposal, it's akin to suggesting the next world war should be fought using water pistols, makes him snort at the absurdity of it all.

And he pulls the whiskey bottle away. Pulls his hand away from Sam's in the process. He's planning on forgoing the glass, taking his medicine straight up from the bottle. Then there's the familiar touch of glass on his lips and he knows what comes next. Buzzed Dean to the rescue.

"Please don't," sloshes over him before the liquor does. Slices into him in ways that the alcohol never can quite heal.

He lowers the bottle, it shakes in his hand. He doesn't know if Sam's watching, not when his own eyes are clamped shut so tightly. Surely Sam doesn't understand what he's asking of him. What he might unleash. That the wall, his wall, it's more fragile than Sam's ever was. Takes constant monitoring, needs fortifications and adjustments and patches every forty seven seconds. And what's in that bottle, it's the lube that keeps it all running.

Sam of all people had to know that. That he wasn't strong enough on his own to deal with everything. That he friggin' needed help. And it just happens to come in nice shiny bottles.

"Sam…" he begins a soft warning in the utterance of his brother's name as he opens his eyes, doesn't look to Sam, goes to stand up, to get away, bottle in hand. But trembling fingers snag onto his sleeve, find purchase, like his brother's next words find purchase in his soul.

"Don't go. Please…don't go Dean."

Facing Sam, he's caught in the cross hairs of his brother's beseeching gaze and he sinks down into the chair he's barely risen from. Almost slams the bottle down onto the table, makes it wobble a few seconds like a top until it remains upright. Turning in his chair, he pins Sam with a glare, silently demanding '_Now what? What do you want from me Sam_?'

But Sam's eyes, they are shimmering. Dean knows it's his undoing, will be if he doesn't leave right then or set Sam straight. And leaving, it's not an option, not when Sam's asked him to stay.

"Sam, I need a friggin' drink," he says it light, with a bark of laughter, like it's a joking request, not the thing he's craving more than his next breath.

"I need _you_," Sam rawly counters. And that right there, it trumps Dean's craving for even air.

Leaning closer to Sam, meeting his brother's pain dulled eyes, he vows, "I'm not going anywhere, Sammy."

But instead of being pacified, Sam's trembling frame shifts and his shaking arm snakes out, his brother's quivering fingers skim over the buttons of his shirt, fist into the fabric of his shirt front like it's a lifeline. And Sam's head rolls slightly left to right. "You. _My brother_," Sam insists, clarifies as if he's asking for someone that's not there, that that isn't the person he has caged in his big hands.

"You expecting someone else?" he snarks back, doesn't get where Sam's going with this, maybe doesn't _want_ to.

But for all the pain his brother is in, Sam's eyes are clear, focused, determined, calls him on everything with that one look. Twenty six years of Sammy experience tell him that his brother knows exactly what he wants and won't be satisfied until he gets it.

"You don't need it, Dean."

He doesn't even _pretend_ to misunderstand Sam. Answers with a clenched jaw and a warning glare. But Sam's not backing down.

"You don't!" Sam heatedly repeats, yanking him closer, almost onto the bed with him.

"Hey!" he exclaims in surprised umbrage at the manhandling, putting his elbows on the mattress to prevent himself from pitching right on top of his little brother. Then he tries to loosen Sam's manacle grip on his arm and shirtfront…to no avail. "Sam, let go or I'm warning you…"

"I miss him…" Sam's quiet words slice across his like a machete, hack the emotions in the room into kindling.

They know each other too well to not know who Sam is referring to: Sober Dean.

'_So do I'_ rattles in one breath but the words that come out in the next aren't those. "Nobody misses him." Not Bobby, not Cas. And the thousand and one people he's met the past three years, well they can't miss someone they've never met. Everyone else who once knew, maybe even liked Sober Dean, they're all dead, either by his hand or by his failures.

The tear that tracks down his brother's face, it guts him just a little bit, would have decimated Sober Dean.

"Well I do," Sam croaks out, the declaration half way between an angry tirade and a sob.

"He's gone, Sammy. Dead," he mercilessly shoots down his brother's misplaced hope.

But Sam, he shakes his head, sends his other tears off track. "No, he's not. He can't be."

"Why not?"

When Sam inhales, he knows his brother's next words will be the best weapons in his arsenal. He tries to prepare himself for the onslaught.

"Because then they've won. Because even when you're right beside me, you're not _here_." Sam jerks his chin toward the whiskey bottle in accusation. "Half of you…_most of you_ is in that bottle." When his brother settles his look back on him, he's speared him with the intensity of Sam's emotions. "And I'm still the selfish jerk you accused me of being Dean. I want _all of you_ with me. I want my brother back…and everything that comes with him."

Now it's his voice that is hoarse, his eyes that shimmer as they collide with Sam's. "You don't know what you're asking for." Sam doesn't know the freak show he's inviting into their already screwed up lives. The monster his brother is unknowingly opening the cage for. The liquor bottles that he drains, they hold the torturer, the betrayer, the beggar, the evil incarnate that he is in their empty depths. A temporary cage until the next bottle replaces it.

"Yeah, I do," Sam replies, his voice solemn but firm, his eyes holding sorrow, sympathy, need and the smallest light of hope. "I'm asking you to just be you. Please don't hide from me, not now, Dean. Not when you're the only real thing that I can count on, when everything else isn't real at all."

His face crumbles and he can't form words, not right away, can only nod as his own tears overrun their boundaries, track down his face. Then he speaks, needs to cement the promise aloud, like he has a hundred promises before. "Ok, Sammy. Ok. No more hiding."

Sam's exhale of relief nearly shatters apart, has his brother's throat bobbing. Sam's grip on him tightens instead of loosens. Sam is not ready to give him an inch of space, even after getting what he wanted.

Realizing that the not-hiding pact has to go into effect immediately, he shuffles his position and sinks down onto the side of the mattress. He makes every effort to not dislodge his brother's hold. But it's truly in no jeopardy of breaking. Knows that because in the split second it almost does, Sam redoubles the strength of his grip.

Sitting on the mattress at Sam's hip, he looks down at his brother's pale but now almost serene features. Sammy did always gloat when he got his way.

"You're probably going to regret this, we both will," he lightly warns but Sam doesn't bat an eyelash, keeps his gaze locked on him. "He's not great company, Sammy. I should know."

"You're biased," Sam quietly refutes, his eyes beginning to flutter, sleep setting in.

"I'm experienced, is what I am."

Sam fights down a yawn as he volleys back, "I'm just as experienced."

"Yeah, well, _you're_ biased."

Sam smiles for the first time all day. "Absolutely. And if you say one more bad thing about him…."

"You'll what, Sammy?"

"I'll use all the moves my big brother taught me and kick your butt."

And for the first time in forty four years, Sober Dean laughs.

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Please don't misread this. I'm not calling Dean an alcoholic or signing him up for AA or anything but I just _loved_ Sam's worry that Dean was drinking already in the day. And I find it sort of sad when Bobby & even Cas have plied Dean with liquor on occasion. I just thought that Sam would not want that to be Dean's solution, that he would want to be Dean's solution, just like he wants Dean to be his solution. That them being together, that was their solution.

Ok, I'm done rambling now…

Have great day!

Cheryl W.


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